Cilantro Lime Margaritas

Happy Saturday! It wouldn’t be the weekend without a little cocktail, so check this one out!

Cilantro Lime Margaritas! How this cocktail came to be is a bit of a long story.

It all started last weekend when Nick was putting the finishing touches on a honey lemon wheat beer. I had to squeeze 7 huge lemons for him…

Looking at the seemingly useless lemon peels, I had an idea. I love the chocolate dipped orange and lemon peels that once in a while come in a really good box of chocolates. Sweet, chewy and delicious! So I decided to try to make candied lemon peels!

Candied Lemon Peels

• 5 large lemon peels
• 2 cups water
• 2 cups sugar, plus extra for coating

Cut the lemon peels in strips and remove all of the pith (the white part, which is really bitter).

Bring the water to a boil in a medium sauce pot. Add the lemon peels and boil about 5 minutes.

Remove the lemon peels from the water.

Add the sugar and boil until dissolved. Return the lemon peels to the pot. Boil until translucent, about 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Place the lemon peels on a rack to drain and dry. Dry overnight.

Place the lemon peels in a ziplock bag with extra sugar and shake them all around. Ta-da! Candied lemon peels.

So… now you’re wondering what the heck candied lemon peels have to do with margaritas, right? Well… making the candied lemon peels produced another product.

Lemon simple syrup! I was going to throw out the lemony, sugary liquid, but then I thought, hmmm… I might be able to use this for a delicious drink. And so I saved it.

When Friday night rolled around again, I did a little Google search on what kinds of drinks I could make with lemon syrup. Lots of margaritas came up, including a very interesting sounding Cilantro Lime Margarita! I actually happened to have all the ingredients for it on hand, so I gave it a shot…

Cilantro Lime Margaritas

makes 2 drinks

• 3 shots tequila
• 1.5 shots grand marnier or triple sec
• 1.5 shots lemon simple syrup (or regular ss)
• juice of 2 limes
• 2 tbsp cilantro, muddled or chopped
• 1/4 cup light Mexican beer
• salt, for rims

Mix tequila, grand marnier, simple syrup, lime juice and muddled cilantro in a shaker with ice. Pour over ice into 2 salt-rimmed glasses. Top off each drink with beer.

So good! I don’t always love margarita mixes, so making them from scratch was awesome. The cilantro gave the margaritas a fresh and interesting flavor without being too overpowering. Definitely a winner!

Time to head to the pool… I could go for another one of these right about now! 😉